


Strengths and Loneliness

by oofmilk



Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Car Accidents, Gen, Near Death Experiences, Serious Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:02:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25025110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oofmilk/pseuds/oofmilk
Summary: A reflection on the car accident that changed Mami’s life and what came after it.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	Strengths and Loneliness

_“Did you hear what happened to her?”_

She’s sitting in the backseat of her parents’ car. She doesn’t know the exact make and model, but she supposes it doesn’t matter. They’re coming home from her sewing lesson.

_“Who?”_

A truck is barreling down the road with no signs of stopping. It swerves as it banks a hard right and drives onto the bridge. The man in the passenger seat tells the driver to go faster.

_“Tomoe-san.”_

The driver turns out of his lane without looking. He punches the gas and looks over his shoulder to see if the police are following. He doesn’t see the car driving in front of him.

_“No, I didn’t. What happened?”_

Her father yells and yanks the wheel sideways, but it doesn’t stop the truck. The driver looks back too late to react, and he hits the car at full speed. The car flips on its side.

_“Her family got into a car accident, and both of her parents died.”_

The truck pushes the car down the highway for entirely too long before the driver slams on the brakes. Neither he nor his passenger move. The car rolls a few times, and somewhere along the way her seat belt comes undone and the windows break.

_“That’s horrible! Is she okay?”_

She’s laying where a window should be, and everything hurts. She calls out for a mother and a father who don’t respond. Some part of her already knows they’re dead, but she doesn’t want to accept it.

_“They had to take her to the hospital. I heard her legs got messed up really bad.”_

She can hear an ambulance’s siren. Blood from a head wound clouds her vision, and pain from numerous other injuries cloud her mind. She can’t feel her legs. By the time the paramedics reach her inside the wreck, she’s unconscious.

_“Messed up how? Like they’re broken?”_

She wakes up in a hospital bed with an IV drip in her arm and casts on both of her legs. A nurse tells her she’s lucky to be alive. She doesn’t feel lucky at all. She asks about her parents. The nurse doesn’t answer.

_“Well, they are broken, but she can’t walk anymore.”_

Just over a week later she’s released in a wheelchair. Her doctor says something about physical therapy appointments, but she doesn’t hear it. She feels completely numb. For the first time ever, she goes home to an empty apartment.

_“Oh my God… I can’t even imagine what she’s going through…”_

She returns to school and tries not to snap at her classmates when they offer her pity. She doesn’t want pity. She wants her parents, even if she has to give up walking for the rest of her life.

_“Neither can I. I hope things aren’t too hard on her.”_

In time she graduates from the wheelchair to crutches, but it doesn’t feel like improvement. It feels like leaving her parents behind. She begrudgingly works on her exercises, if only because her parents would want her to.

_“They probably are. I mean, she lost both of her parents, so she probably lives alone now.”_

She lays awake at night staring at the ceiling. She thinks about her parents, and then she thinks about the girls in the year below her. They look up to her, so she’s going to have to take up the helm of the calm and cool mentor.

_“Maybe we can help her?”_

She locks away her pain and sadness in favor of a confident façade. She becomes strong for her juniors, who need it more than she does, really. She becomes their pillar to cling to when everything else seems unsure.

_“I think we could try, but she wouldn’t accept it.”_

She smiles with them and aids them when it’s needed. They become friends, of a sort, but she can’t shake the creeping loneliness she feels when she goes home all alone. She doesn’t bother them about her crutches, even though she’ll have to use them for the rest of her life.

_“That’s a shame. I just want to make her life a little bit easier.”_

She becomes strong, in her own way, by pushing aside her loneliness to not seem like a drag on the group. Even still, she can’t help but feel appreciative when they help her with tasks that aren’t so easy anymore. It’s bittersweet, making her feel welcome and shut out at the same time.

_“Yeah, me too.”_


End file.
